Little Bird Page 8

  ‘Come back here next week,’ Annette pleaded. ‘I’ll pay you. We’ll be discreet. I only want to . . . I want to see her. I don’t mean any harm. I want to see my granddaughter.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t.’ I headed up the path as quickly as I could, gripping the pram’s handle. When I glanced back over my shoulder, Annette was still there, buffeted by the wind, watching us walk away, a shrinking figure in the widening expanse of the park.

  11

  Outside it was almost dark. Colette should have been home over an hour ago. She’d never been later than five o’clock. I tried her mobile again – no answer.

  I managed to scrape together some dinner for Maisy, a few random vegie cubes mixed with some rice cereal. Maisy ate a few mouthfuls then turned her head away, her lips clamped closed.

  ‘Mummy home soon,’ I said, trying to sound convincing.

  I admit, Annette had freaked me out. Clearly she’d known about Sundays because Spence had told her, but I’d never told Spence what time Colette came home. Had Annette been spying on us? Was she out there on the street now – watching? The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that I’d seen that blue sedan before, parked out on the street. No, that was crazy. I never paid attention to cars. I tried to make myself think about something else. But my brain kept ticking over. Had she deliberately waited until we were at the park with no people around? What would I have done if she’d taken Maisy? Shouted for help? Tackled them both to the ground? Was I strong enough to do that? And I knew if she’d managed to get Maisy in the car, I would have been helpless.

  Every time I heard a noise from outside – a car door banging, or people calling to each other down on the street – my heart practically stopped beating.

  I bathed Maisy, who was tired, and put her in her pyjamas. I cuddled her and sang her to sleep in my arms, the warmth of her spreading through me. I loved her with such force it hurt. How was it that such a perfect baby could have such imperfect parents? I closed my eyes. I imagined taking her, walking right out of the flat, getting on the bus to Launceston, or catching a taxi to the airport and then using Dad’s money to buy a plane ticket (only Dad hadn’t actually given me any money yet). Me and Maisy somewhere warm and far away, like Queensland. How long could we live on five thousand dollars?

  I lowered Maisy into bed and perched nervously in the lounge room to wait for Colette. I swung between being furious with her for being so slack and worrying that something had happened to her. What if she’d been in a car accident? What if Annette had been down there waiting, her dark car concealed in shadows and then, when Colette stepped out onto the road to cross, Annette had sunk her foot down on the accelerator and . . . ? No, no, that was ridiculous. I forced myself to think about something else.

  I put the television on, but the news was all about death and war and sports stars behaving badly. I flicked from station to station – Crime Stoppers, ads for gritty cop shows about murdered children or serial killers. Ugh. I turned it off. I stared at the phone. What would the police say if I rang them? They’d laugh at me if I said Colette was a missing person when she was only two hours late home from band practice. They’d laugh even harder if I told them I was scared of someone’s nana. I thought about ringing Spence. But what could I say? ‘The mother of your child may or may not be dead or a complete flake? And by the way, your mum’s a freak and possibly a kidnapper.’

  To pass the time I did the washing up. There was something calming about sloshing the warm water about, and I got a curious satisfaction out of putting all the dishes neatly away in the cupboards, finding a home for everything. When I’d finished, I checked on Maisy. She was sleeping peacefully, but as I walked back along the hallway, I was aware of the dark void of Colette’s room behind me, and it felt sinister somehow, as if there might be an intruder in the shadows, monsters under the bed.

  The phone rang. I leapt to answer it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ruby-lee, is that you?’ It was Mum. I’d never been so glad to hear her voice. It made me feel instantly safer to have her on the other end of the phone, even if she was almost an hour’s drive away. ‘Why are you still there? Do you need Stefan to come and pick you up?’

  ‘Colette’s not back yet.’

  ‘She’s not back? Oh Ruby-lee, I don’t like you being out this late on a school night. She is taking advantage of you.’

  ‘It’s not that late.’

  ‘Well, by the time you get a lift home . . .’

  I heard people coming up the stairs. I froze, listening. ‘I think that’s her now.’

  ‘Ruby-lee, you tell Colette––’

  The key jangled in the lock. ‘Yep, no worries, thanks, Mum, bye,’ I said brightly, as Colette came in. A tall, long-limbed guy came in after her, with curly ginger hair and a big, genuine smile. I hung up the phone while Mum was still talking. I’d get a ticking off for that later, for sure.

  ‘Hey, Rubes, sorry we’re so late. A couple of the guys didn’t show up till after four so we had a late start.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said, though inside I was furious.

  ‘This is Ed. He’ll drive you home, Anna had an essay to write for uni. Ed, this is Ruby-lee.’

  ‘G’day, Ruby-lee,’ Ed said, sticking out an extraordinarly long arm. It took me a moment to realise I was meant to shake his hand. I did so, awkwardly, and muttered hello. I didn’t want Ed to drive me home. I wanted Anna, who reminded me of my hairdresser, with her streaked hair and tight black T-shirts. She didn’t seem to realise there was nothing cool about me at all. She talked at me non-stop, about her friends, as if I knew them, and I didn’t have to contribute a word to the conversation; and yet I was ridiculously flattered that she could think I would know these people and those bars and nightclubs too.

  ‘Where’s Maisy?’ Colette asked.

  ‘In bed. She crashed an hour ago. She didn’t have a sleep this afternoon.’

  ‘Really? Huh. That’s weird.’

  ‘She was almost asleep in the pram, and then she . . . woke up again.’

  That was the moment I should have told her about Annette. But that noisy confusion was back again. I felt that I had betrayed Colette’s trust in me. If she knew about me and Spence, whatever it was that had occurred between us, she would never let me babysit Maisy again. I couldn’t bear life without Maisy.

  So I didn’t say anything. I slunk out the door with Ed, before Colette even noticed that I’d done all the dishes for her. I followed Ed to the car. He stopped beside an old yellow Mini.

  ‘Hang on for a sec.’

  He looked very awkward, squishing himself behind the steering wheel. He leaned over and opened my door from the inside.

  ‘Sorry the handle doesn’t work from the outside. Where to?’

  ‘Dawnvale.’

  ‘Cripes, where’s that?’

  ‘On the Eastern Shore, past the new Pleasant Lake Estate. We need to go over the bridge and get onto the Tasman Highway.’

  Ed started the engine, indicated and did a very cautious headcheck before pulling out slowly from the kerb. When he drove, his head bobbed up and down nervously, checking his mirrors.

  ‘I’m not used to driving at night,’ he said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I mean, I’m a perfectly good driver.’

  ‘Yeah. Of course you are.’ I tried to suppress the doubt in my voice.

  ‘The bridge freaks me out a bit.’

  I glanced sideways at him. Was he joking?

  ‘And changing lanes. And merging.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Highways in general. Stopping. Starting. Turning right.’

  ‘How long have you been driving for?’

  ‘Including my Ls, a couple of years,’ he said. ‘I’m doing Year 12 late because I did a student exchange in America.’

  ‘America? Wow.’ I was trying to decide what was worse. Shandra the demon devil driver, or Ed, the six foot tall nervous mouse.

  ‘It was all r
ight. The food was crap. The cheese was orange. I like Australia better.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in a whole other country. I’ve hardly been out of Tasmania.’

  Ed shrugged. ‘Tassie’s not such a bad place. Colette told me how you babysit for free. That’s sweet of you.’

  ‘Um, yeah.’ I felt uncomfortable with the idea that I was performing some kind of community service. I wanted to be with Maisy. At the same time, I wondered if I came across as the loser Tegan said I was, trading in my social life for a baby. ‘So are you in the band?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What do you play?’

  ‘Piano accordion.’

  I laughed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t old men play accordion? Like that guy in the mall who looks like Bad Santa.’

  ‘You mean Grandad?’

  ‘Oh,’ I covered my mouth with my hand. ‘Oh, Ed, I’m so . . . that was a terrible thing to say . . .’

  He laughed. ‘He’s not really my grandad.’

  I slapped his arm. ‘Get stuffed.’ But I had to laugh.

  ‘Accordions are the new punk.’

  I laughed again.

  Ed shook his head. ‘You can laugh, but you’re proving how uncool you are.’

  ‘Seriously. What do you really play?’

  Ed raised his eyebrows. ‘I really play the accordion. Look in the back seat.’

  I craned my neck, and there it was, not in a case or anything, sitting on the back seat of the car. ‘Oh. Oops. Sorry again.’

  ‘You should come see us play sometime.’

  ‘Yeah! Oh, except if you play in pubs, I won’t be allowed in.’

  ‘Right. Of course.’ He drove in silence again for a while. I gazed out the window as we chugged up to the crest of the bridge and down the other side, then onto the highway.

  Suddenly, Ed said, ‘Hey, we go to school together.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re at Derwent College right?’ He pointed. We were passing the turn-off to the school. In fact we were driving right past the bus stop I’d waited at all those weeks ago, after Spence had dropped me off.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘So we go to school together. I’ve seen you around.’

  ‘You’ve seen me?’ Now that he said it, he seemed a little familiar to me too. The penny dropped (as Nana used to say), I’d seen him in Spence’s office, with that girl, Beck. ‘Oh. Yes. You’re one of the music groupies!’

  ‘Well, I like to think of myself as a musician rather than a music groupie. But yeah, most of my friends are in the music department.’ He flashed a grin at me. ‘But you’re not a music groupie? So how come I’ve seen you hanging around with Spence?’

  ‘You don’t know? Spence is Maisy’s father.’

  Ed’s head swivelled around so fast I thought he might give himself whiplash. ‘No way!’

  ‘Yes way. What planet are you from?’

  ‘I don’t know. The planet where nobody knows that Spence is Maisy’s father.’

  ‘I thought everybody knew.’

  ‘Well, obviously not. Once again, nobody tells the accordionist.’ Ed thought about it for a minute. ‘I can’t say it surprises me though. I mean, there’s something kind of . . . you know. Creepy about him. The way he hangs out with the students. It’s a bit desperate or something.’ He glanced at my face. ‘Uh oh. Sorry. You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t . . . like him. You don’t know him like I do. He’s more complicated than that.’

  Ed raised his eyebrows. ‘Okay. And how well do you know him, exactly? How complicated is he?’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Listen, don’t get cranky. All the girls I hang out with have a crush on Spence. I don’t see the appeal myself. I can’t believe Colette . . . ugh.’ He shuddered. ‘I mean she’s so . . . and he’s so . . .’

  Suddenly I had a wave of panic. ‘Listen, you can’t tell Colette that you’ve seen me with Spence. I mean, I’m sure it wouldn’t . . . like it’s not like you’d be talking about me or anything. But . . .’

  ‘Uh-huh. I get it. It’s complicated, right?’

  ‘It’s not what you think.’

  ‘How do you know I think what you think I think?’

  ‘You need to turn right at the enormous roundabout and get onto the South Arm Highway.’

  ‘Enormous roundabout?’ Ed squeaked. ‘Okay.’

  The subject of Spence – and what Ed was thinking – was dropped.

  Ed finally got me home after crawling along the highway at sixty kilometres an hour. We talked about safe stuff – movies, television, homework. He spoke about California, how overcrowded and polluted Los Angeles had been, how beautiful and clean Hobart was in comparison, how he’d cried flying over the River Derwent when he flew back into Hobart Airport. It was funny to hear about a boy crying tears of joy.

  I directed him through the quiet streets of Dawnvale to our crouching, grey cement brick box of a house. I was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see how drab and miserable it was.

  ‘Maybe I’ll see you at school tomorrow,’ he said as I got out of the car. He waited with the lights on as I walked up the driveway. ‘Wait,’ he called out. He struggled to get out of the car.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How do I get back to the highway from here?’

  ‘Drive to the end of the street. Right at the first roundabout, left at Sunshine Avenue then right onto Heritage Drive, which will take you back out to the highway. It’s easy.’

  ‘Right – left – right.’ He frowned.

  ‘Maybe I won’t see you at school tomorrow,’ I said.

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘If you get lost maybe you could—’ I mimed playing the accordion. ‘Someone’ll come out of their house to see what’s dying and then they can point you in the right direction.’

  ‘Ooh, that’s low.’ Ed narrowed his eyes and pointed at me. ‘You’ll keep.’

  I laughed to myself as I walked up to the house. Maybe school wouldn’t totally suck this week.

  12

  My good mood leaked away as soon as I entered the house. Stefan was dozing in front of the closing credits of Sixty Minutes. As I walked up the hallway towards the kitchen, I heard sobbing and sniffing noises coming from Shandra’s bedroom. I stopped at her open door. Mum was sitting on Shandra’s bed, holding Shandra while she bawled and bawled; tissues littered the bed. In the last month, all through the cancellations and Shandra’s firm insistence that the wedding was off and her spiky moodiness, I hadn’t seen her shed a single tear. Watching her cry now in a way I hadn’t seen anyone cry since Dad had left – and then it was Mum soaking through the tissues, for days, for weeks – I was suddenly afraid for her.

  ‘Shan,’ I said.

  It was Mum who met my eyes. She shook her head. And then she stood up and swung Shandra’s bedroom door shut. She shut me out. I pressed myself against the wall, feeling suddenly very alone.

  Stefan padded up the hall, TV guide in his hand.

  ‘Come on, Rubes. I’ll make you a Milo. Jeez, that girl keeps you out to all hours, doesn’t she? Your mum’s not too impressed.’

  ‘It’s not that late,’ I mumbled. ‘What’s wrong with Shandra?’

  Stefan shrugged. ‘I guess she’ll tell you when she’s ready. Want to watch the movie?’

  ‘What is it?’ I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to drink Milo and watch a Lindsay Lohan flick or something old and sappy, like The Horse Whisperer.

  He consulted the guide. ‘Freddy versus Jason?’

  ‘Yuck. No thanks.’

  Stefan put the milk in the microwave. ‘Why don’t you pick a DVD?’ he said.

  I went into the lounge room and began riffling through the DVDs we owned. I slipped one into the machine.

  ‘What are we watching?’ Stefan asked, coming in with a Milo in each hand and a packet of Tim Tams wedged under his chin.

  ‘Babe,’ I said apologetically.


  Stefan settled back on the couch and passed me my Milo. ‘Comfort food, comfort viewing.’

  We sat on the couch, the Tim Tams between us. About halfway through the movie Mum slipped into the lounge room. Stefan handed her the rest of the Tim Tams.

  ‘Where’s Shandra?’ I asked.

  ‘Asleep,’ Mum said.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  I saw a look pass between Mum and Stefan. Then Mum said, tiredly, ‘Let’s watch the movie.’

  My insides felt like they’d grown too big for my body, my bones nobbled uncomfortably in my spine. Tears welled in my eyes as Babe ran away, but I knew that everything would work out for the little pig: Farmer Hoggett would find him, Babe would win the sheepdog competition and he’d live another day to make a sequel I’d never seen. But it seemed to me that we were all a bit like Babe: me, Maisy, Shandra, Damien, Colette, Annette, Spence, Mum, Dad, Stefan, Paula, baby William. We were all alone. All betrayed by our disappointing futures and by the people we loved.

  I remembered my English assignment, the one I still hadn’t done. What is love? It’s a hoax, it’s a con, it’s a trick. Because it makes us think we’re not alone, but really, for all of us, alone is exactly the sum total of what we are.

  I didn’t see Shandra before school the next morning. Her bedroom door stayed shut. I heard Mum ring the real estate office and tell them Shandra would be needing a few days off. I hesitated outside her bedroom door before I left the house, listening to her silence, but I was too scared to knock.

  I climbed the steps onto the school bus with a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach. Tegan was sitting by herself on the window side. She looked tight and nervous. I wondered if she’d had a fight with Blake. I summoned up the courage to talk to her.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  She glanced up. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Can I sit here?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s a free country.’

  It wasn’t exactly a gilded invitation, but I sat down anyway.

  ‘How’s your sister?’ she asked me.

  ‘Shandra?’ I asked surprised. ‘Um, okay. Why?’

  ‘I heard the wedding’s off. I heard Damien dumped her.’